John Woolman

John Woolman (born October 19, 1720 in Northampton , Burlington County , New Jersey , † October 7, 1772 in York , England ) was an American Quaker and vehement opponent of slavery.

family

John Woolman grew up in a Quaker family. His parents were Samuel Woolman (1690–1755) and Elizabeth Woolman, née Burr (1696–1773).

John Woolman married Sarah Ellis (1721–1781) in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1749.

Life and (faith) testimony

At the age of six years read John Woolman from the Bible in Revelation Chapter 22 ( Rev. 22.1 ELB ), which made a deep impression on him. Woolman later became a preacher to the Quakers and lived off the income as a fruit grower and tailor. He had given up trading because it seemed pointless to him to support slavery by trading sugar, rum and textiles. On his preaching trips from his home in the Rancocas area of Mount Holly on the Delaware River , he was particularly troubled by the needs of the blacks.

"It made me wonder that these entrepreneurs only supported the importation of slaves so that they and their children would be able to live almost without work."

- John Woolman : Records 1746

In 1746 Woolman began to write down his thoughts on the matter based on his experiences in the southern provinces. From then on, John Woolman tried to convince the other Quakers of the shame of the slave trade and possession in his sermons. The Quakers later served as role models in the fight against slavery, especially in England and the USA.

It took a long time to convince the Quakers themselves to abolish slavery. As early as 1688, Pennsylvania Germans sent a memorandum to the Quakers of Pennsylvania not to keep slaves. The advocates of slavery among the Quakers have sometimes argued that the slaves were descendants of Cain and that trade with them was legitimate. Woolman preached against it, since in his view the descendants of Cain had already been judged by the Flood .

From 1746, John Woolman roamed the colonies preaching against military service, unfair taxation and slavery . In 1743 he refused to bill his employer for the acquisition of a slave and lost his job. In 1754 he wrote the treatise Some Considerations on Keeping Negroes and spread it on his hikes, especially in Quaker circles.

"The prospect that our lives in some parts of our newly settled mainland America would lead to disaster because of our behavior towards the blacks made me very worried on this trip."

- John Woolman : Records 1757

In 1758 the Philadelphia Quakers' annual meeting banned its members from the slave trade. In 1760 Woolman saw the slave market in Newport (Rhode Island) himself, where many slaves from Guinea arrived. A petition he wrote to the local legislature was not sent out of consideration for his local friends. Senior Quaker clergymen were also involved in the slave trade in Rhode Island . As a result, Woolman now also opposed slavery journalistically.

Now the abolition movement spread to France through Jean Brissot, a politician from the Gironde department , who was friends with the Quakers . Brissot was beheaded there.

As late as 1764, slave owners were tolerated in the ranks of the Quakers, including some who took part in the innermost meetings of the religious community. A general secularization and negligence in spiritual matters was noted among the Quakers due to increasing prosperity.

"Even among the truly pious, there are only a few who refuse to enjoy the land products made by them because of the harsh exploitation of the slaves employed in the West Indies."

- John Woolman : Notes 1769/70

In London , too , Quakers were still partly and indirectly involved in the slave trade by loading the slave ships with goods to Africa in the triangular trade between England , Africa and North America .

On October 7, 1772, John Woolman died of smallpox in Thomas Priestman's home in York . Woolman, despite his sickly demeanor, had undertaken much travel and hard service for the just cause.

It is mainly thanks to Woolman that the Quakers petitioned the American Congress in 1790 for the abolition of slavery and subsequently became one of the driving forces behind the abolitionist movement. In his work he continued the work of Benjamin Lay , also a Quaker. Following Lay who refused to use products or services that were the result of slave labor - whether human or animal - Woolman was a vegetarian and called for "true justice and goodness, not just to all To humans, but also to animals ".

Woolman wrote, as was not unusual for Quakers of the time, a journal , a kind of spiritual autobiography , which, however, with its descriptions of colonial society, is also interesting as a contemporary document. It has a permanent place as a classic in American literature ; so it was selected for the first volume of the Harvard Classics around 1909 .

Work editions

Phillips P. Moulton (Ed.): The Journal and Major Essays of John Woolman. Oxford University Press, New York 1971. New edition: Friend United Press, Richmond, Ind. 1997, ISBN 0-944350-10-0 .
John Woolman's Notes. From the time of the liberation of slaves. Transferred and introduced by Alfons Paquet . Quäkerverlag, Berlin 1923. New edition: Leonhard Friedrich, Bad Pyrmont 1964.
For the poor: a call for justice. Quäkerverlag, Berlin 1931.

literature

Claus Bernet : John Woolman. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 20, Bautz, Nordhausen 2002, ISBN 3-88309-091-3 , Sp. 1560-1574. ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
Edwin H. Cady: John Woolman . Washington Square Press, New York 1965.
Reginald Reynolds: The Wisdom of John Woolman, with a Selection from his Writings as a Guide to the Seekers of Today . G. Allen & Unwin, London 1948. New edition: Greenwood Press, Westport CT 1981, ISBN 0-313-22190-1 .
Paul Rosenblatt: John Woolman. Twayne, New York 1969.
Janet Whitney: John Woolman, American Quaker . Little, Brown and Co., Boston 1942.
Woolman, John . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 28 : Vetch - Zymotic Diseases . London 1911, p. 817 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).

Web links

Commons : John Woolman - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Literature by and about John Woolman in the catalog of the German National Library
Introduction to the book "John Woolman, Quintessential Quaker" on QuakerInfo
The Journal of John Woolman on the University of Virginia pages.

Individual evidence

Jump up ↑ The Descendants of John & Elizabeth (Borton) Woolman, married 1684, of Burlington County, New Jersey, Burlington, New Jersey: The John Boorman Memorial Society, 1997
^ Anne Moore Mueller: John Woolman on tricolib.brynmawr.edu
↑ The Notes of John Woolman. From the time of the liberation of slaves. Transfer u. a. by Alfons Paquet. 2nd Edition. Leonhard Friedrich, Bad Pyrmont 1964, p. 25
↑ The Notes of John Woolman. From the time of the liberation of slaves. Transfer u. a. by Alfons Paquet. 2nd Edition. Leonhard Friedrich, Bad Pyrmont 1964, pp. 54 and 164
↑ The Notes of John Woolman. From the time of the liberation of slaves. Transfer u. a. by Alfons Paquet. 2nd Edition. Leonhard Friedrich, Bad Pyrmont 1964, p. 39
↑ The Notes of John Woolman. From the time of the liberation of slaves. Transfer u. a. by Alfons Paquet. 2nd Edition. Leonhard Friedrich, Bad Pyrmont 1964, pp. 39 and 43
↑ The Notes of John Woolman. From the time of the liberation of slaves. Transfer u. a. by Alfons Paquet. 2nd Edition. Leonhard Friedrich, Bad Pyrmont 1964, p. 12
↑ The Notes of John Woolman. From the time of the liberation of slaves. Transfer u. a. by Alfons Paquet. 2nd Edition. Leonhard Friedrich, Bad Pyrmont 1964, p. 67
↑ The Notes of John Woolman. From the time of the liberation of slaves. Transfer u. a. by Alfons Paquet. 2nd Edition. Leonhard Friedrich, Bad Pyrmont 1964, p. 69
↑ The Notes of John Woolman. From the time of the liberation of slaves. Transfer u. a. by Alfons Paquet. 2nd Edition. Leonhard Friedrich, Bad Pyrmont 1964, pp. 109, 115 and 123
↑ The Notes of John Woolman. From the time of the liberation of slaves. Transfer u. a. by Alfons Paquet. 2nd Edition. Leonhard Friedrich, Bad Pyrmont 1964, p. 124
↑ The Notes of John Woolman. From the time of the liberation of slaves. Transfer u. a. by Alfons Paquet. 2nd Edition. Leonhard Friedrich, Bad Pyrmont 1964, p. 153 f.
↑ The Notes of John Woolman. From the time of the liberation of slaves. Transfer u. a. by Alfons Paquet. 2nd Edition. Leonhard Friedrich, Bad Pyrmont 1964, p. 167
↑ The Notes of John Woolman. From the time of the liberation of slaves. Transfer u. a. by Alfons Paquet. 2nd Edition. Leonhard Friedrich, Bad Pyrmont 1964, p. 189
↑ The Notes of John Woolman. From the time of the liberation of slaves. Transfer u. a. by Alfons Paquet. 2nd Edition. Leonhard Friedrich, Bad Pyrmont 1964, p. 205
^ Matthias Rude: Antispeciesism. The liberation of humans and animals in the animal rights movement and the left . Butterfly Verlag, Stuttgart 2013, p. 39.

personal data
SURNAME	Woolman, John
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American itinerant preacher and author
DATE OF BIRTH	October 19, 1720
PLACE OF BIRTH	Northampton , New Jersey
DATE OF DEATH	October 7, 1772
Place of death	York , England

[1] Jump up ↑ The Descendants of John & Elizabeth (Borton) Woolman, married 1684, of Burlington County, New Jersey, Burlington, New Jersey: The John Boorman Memorial Society, 1997

[2] Anne Moore Mueller: John Woolman on tricolib.brynmawr.edu

[3] The Notes of John Woolman. From the time of the liberation of slaves. Transfer u. a. by Alfons Paquet. 2nd Edition. Leonhard Friedrich, Bad Pyrmont 1964, p. 25

[4] The Notes of John Woolman. From the time of the liberation of slaves. Transfer u. a. by Alfons Paquet. 2nd Edition. Leonhard Friedrich, Bad Pyrmont 1964, pp. 54 and 164

[5] The Notes of John Woolman. From the time of the liberation of slaves. Transfer u. a. by Alfons Paquet. 2nd Edition. Leonhard Friedrich, Bad Pyrmont 1964, p. 39

[6] The Notes of John Woolman. From the time of the liberation of slaves. Transfer u. a. by Alfons Paquet. 2nd Edition. Leonhard Friedrich, Bad Pyrmont 1964, pp. 39 and 43

[7] The Notes of John Woolman. From the time of the liberation of slaves. Transfer u. a. by Alfons Paquet. 2nd Edition. Leonhard Friedrich, Bad Pyrmont 1964, p. 12

[8] The Notes of John Woolman. From the time of the liberation of slaves. Transfer u. a. by Alfons Paquet. 2nd Edition. Leonhard Friedrich, Bad Pyrmont 1964, p. 67

[9] The Notes of John Woolman. From the time of the liberation of slaves. Transfer u. a. by Alfons Paquet. 2nd Edition. Leonhard Friedrich, Bad Pyrmont 1964, p. 69

[10] The Notes of John Woolman. From the time of the liberation of slaves. Transfer u. a. by Alfons Paquet. 2nd Edition. Leonhard Friedrich, Bad Pyrmont 1964, pp. 109, 115 and 123

[11] The Notes of John Woolman. From the time of the liberation of slaves. Transfer u. a. by Alfons Paquet. 2nd Edition. Leonhard Friedrich, Bad Pyrmont 1964, p. 124

[12] The Notes of John Woolman. From the time of the liberation of slaves. Transfer u. a. by Alfons Paquet. 2nd Edition. Leonhard Friedrich, Bad Pyrmont 1964, p. 153 f.

[13] The Notes of John Woolman. From the time of the liberation of slaves. Transfer u. a. by Alfons Paquet. 2nd Edition. Leonhard Friedrich, Bad Pyrmont 1964, p. 167

[14] The Notes of John Woolman. From the time of the liberation of slaves. Transfer u. a. by Alfons Paquet. 2nd Edition. Leonhard Friedrich, Bad Pyrmont 1964, p. 189

[15] The Notes of John Woolman. From the time of the liberation of slaves. Transfer u. a. by Alfons Paquet. 2nd Edition. Leonhard Friedrich, Bad Pyrmont 1964, p. 205

[16] Matthias Rude: Antispeciesism. The liberation of humans and animals in the animal rights movement and the left . Butterfly Verlag, Stuttgart 2013, p. 39.